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Before you chug down another regular soda, or spoon sugar into your tea or coffee, consider this: There's a heated debate going on over the health risks of consuming too much sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and other caloric sweeteners.

On one side: Leading nutrition experts who believe that these sweeteners, including those used in soft drinks, tea, coffee and countless other foods and beverages, add empty calories to people's diets and promote weight gain. And they say emerging scientific research indicates that consuming too much of these sweeteners may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and other health problems.

On the other side: industry groups representing sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that say their products are natural and don't cause weight gain or health problems. They have launched advertising and marketing campaigns.

The American Heart Association is on the nutrition experts' side. The group recently issued a scientific statement saying that high intake of added sugars is implicated in many poor health conditions, including obesity, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease and stroke. And it recommended that women consume no more than 100 calories a day, or about 6½ teaspoons, from added sugars; men, no more than 150 calories, or about 9½ teaspoons. This includes table sugar, brown sugar, HFCS, honey, molasses, brown rice syrup, agave syrup and other caloric sweeteners.

Americans are eating and drinking an average 22.2 teaspoons a day, or 355 calories, says Rachel Johnson, a nutrition professor at the University of Vermont and lead author of the heart association statement. Every teaspoon has 15 to 16 calories. "Sugar has no nutritional value other than it provides calories," she says.

But the Sugar Association states on its website that the scientific evidence "exonerates sugar as the cause of any lifestyle disease, including heart disease and obesity." In a prepared statement, the group says, "Sugar has been safely used to sweeten foods and beverages for more than 2,000 years."

And the Corn Refiners Association is running ads to boost the image of HFCS. The association's website says that consumers are being misled by marketing tactics implying that products labeled "high-fructose corn syrup-free" are more healthful than those with HFCS.

Hitting a sour note, on both sides

All this marketing hoopla has left a sour taste in the mouths of nutrition experts.

Both sugar and HFCS pack the same calories, and they carry similar health risks because they are both about half fructose, says Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. His research shows that the average American consumes more than half of his or her added-sugars calories from beverages. Popkin's work and that of others also finds that when people drink regular sodas and other high-calorie drinks, they don't cut back on their calories elsewhere.

Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says: "The bottom line is there isn't a shred of evidence that high-fructose corn syrup is nutritionally any different from sugar. We should be consuming a lot less of both sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, starting with soft drinks."

Population studies show the higher people's intake of caloric beverages, sweetened with sugar or HFCS, the greater the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and gout (in men), says George Bray, a professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge and author of The Low-Fructose Approach to Weight Loss. Fructose increases uric acid, which causes gout, he says.

Other studies suggest that the fructose in both sugar and HFCS may increase the risk of high blood pressure, visceral (belly) fat, triglycerides (blood fats), insulin resistance and fatty liver disease, Bray says.

Possible explanations: Fructose appears to cause chemical reactions in the liver and kidney that may lead to health problems, he says.

But Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, which represents companies that make HFCS and other corn products, takes issue with some of the fructose studies.

"Nobody eats the same way as they are feeding people in these laboratory settings," she says. "These misleading studies are giving people abnormally high levels of pure fructose. Fructose itself is safe. It's in the fruits and vegetables we eat every day. Mother nature put it there."

As far as the debate between sugar and HFCS, she says, "there has been a lot of peer-reviewed research demonstrating that all sugars are handled similarly by the body, whether they come from corn, cane or beets."

The association is currently running an ad campaign "correcting the record on high-fructose corn syrup," Erickson says.

In a prepared statement, the Sugar Association says that "recent efforts by manufacturers of HFCS to position their product as 'not different than' and 'nutritionally equal' to sugar are false and misleading. ... Sugar exists naturally in almost every fruit and vegetable, but most abundantly in sugar cane and sugar beets."

Comment: Some additional data about Sugar not mentioned in the article above:
Our bodies are simply not made to process the high quantities of the types of sugar that we consume nowadays.

Sugar is in no way nutritional and it actually depletes the body of its vitamin and mineral resources. High sugar consumption is tied to mental disorders, lower IQ, anxiety, aggressive behavior, hyperactivity, depression, eating disorders, fatigue, learning difficulties, and premenstrual syndrome among others.

One of the most important factors in brain aging and inflammation is sugar. Insulin triggered by sugar triggers oxidative stress which leads to mitochondrial damage, which in turn contributes to insulin resistance. Insulin also triggers the inflammatory cascade, including cytokines like TNF alfa and interleukins which spreads the damage into the brain and body in general.

Sugar produces high levels of insulin which is the main cause of our chronic disease epidemic and an important factor in mood disorders, depression and dementia. Our insulin response is designed to handle vastly lower levels of sugar than what we consume today. For example, the body can process fruit sugar, but not high fructose corn syrup, which is a potent form of sugar that is sweeter than regular sugar, increases appetite, promotes obesity more than regular sugar, is more addictive than cocaine, and leads to diabetes and an inflammation of the brain.

The sugar and processed food you eat triggers stress hormones - cortisol and adrenaline - which creates an imbalance in your brain.

Sugar reacts with proteins in our bodies and brains forming AGEs (advanced glycation end products) which not only damage most cells and tissues in our bodies, but also lead to dementia.

Sugar and processed foods also feed the candida in the gut, making you a sugar addict and perpetuating the inflammatory state of our bodies, and thus leading to all kinds of health problems.

Another reason why people get addicted to refined carbohydrates or sugars is to boost serotonin levels - a calming brain chemical - which then rises temporarily, only to crash after a short while, causing you to crave more starchy or sugary foods. Sugar creates an imbalance, depleting your serotonin levels after a short spike, leading to mood swings and depression.
For more information about the health risks associated with sugar consumption read the following articles on SOTT:

Does Sugar Feed Cancer
Never mind the sugar! Are our children being poisoned by their sweets?
Sugar Addiction is Real
Study Reveals Why Cancer Cells Like Sugar
High-Fat, High-Sugar Foods Alter Brain Receptors
Corn Syrup's Mercury Surprise
Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Turning Us Into Mad Hatters?
Peddling Poison - Bitter battle in sweeteners